Longtime commenter Bruce Siegel now has a blog of his own. Check it out!

Bruce seems to have attracted one or two hostile commenters already. The only explanation I can think of is that his blog's title, which includes the term "militant skeptic," has raised some hackles. Anyway, he is handling those comments with his usual class and patience.

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Here's a small premonition, of no importance in itself, but interesting as an example of how these things seem to work (at least for me).

Yesterday I was relaxing in an armchair in a half-awake state of mind. My thoughts ran, for no obvious reason, to an episode of the old TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The villain in that episode was an older woman known as the Wig Lady, because of the obvious wig she wore. It turned out that the wig concealed a hideous demonic creature that emerged from the top of her head and ate people. Ewww.

Anyway, as I say, there was no obvious reason for me to think of this. The series has been off the air for ten years. I haven't seen an episode of it in a long time, and that particular episode was not one my of favorites.

A couple of hours later, I was making dinner. My habit these days is to work my way through the complete episodes of a sitcom, either on DVD or Netflix streaming video, while working in the kitchen. (I find this much less stressful than watching the news.) At the moment I'm watching How I Met Your Mother via Netflix. I played the next episode in the queue.

And there she was - the Wig Lady! Well, the same actress, anyway, playing a small role in this episode. I don't think she appears in any other episodes; it was just a walk-on bit. I might not have even recognized her if I hadn't been thinking of the Wig Lady on Buffy just a couple of hours earlier.

Coincidence? I doubt it. These things happen to me too often, and with too much specificity, to be explained away so easily. They nearly always involve a dreamy, almost hypnagogic state in which free associations take place. And they are almost always trivial in nature, often involving TV shows and other mundanities.

My guess is that when the mind is sufficiently relaxed, it is open to some degree of "information leakage" from what I call N-space (the information matrix that may underlie our perception of physical reality). This leakage generally is random - hence its triviality. In some cases the leakage does seem to carry a message or a meaning; in those instances I would guess that either our own consciousness can explore N-space and pick out the needed data, or some other consciousness (e.g., a spirit guide) can find the data and impress it on our mind.

By the way, I just looked up the actress. She's Pat Crawford Brown. The HIMYM episode was "Three Days of Snow." The Buffy episode was "Doublemeat Palace."

Much of the debate surrounding near-death experiences concerns veridical cases – instances in which the patient reports events that occurred around him while he was unconscious or even clinically dead. When these observations can be verified, they stand as strong evidence for some form of extra-bodily perception.

There is, I think, less debate about the non-veridical parts of NDEs – the celebrated trip through a tunnel or some other passageway toward a bright light, the reunion with deceased relatives in a paradise-like environment, the encounter with a Being of Light, the life review, and the decision (or command) to return.

Since these elements of an NDE cannot be verified by an outside observer, they are often seen as non-evidential. When a skeptical explanation is called for, the usual one is that the whole experience was a hallucination. We are told that the patient naturally hallucinated all this because he understood he was on the verge of death, a realization that triggered imagery based on his beliefs and expectations about life after death. In support of this theory, skeptics point out that there are variations in the reported experiences, and that these variations not infrequently involve cultural norms – precisely the sort of thing we might expect if the whole experience had been dreamed up.

I don't find this line of argument very convincing. I think it overlooks key facts and relies on implausible assumptions. Let's take a closer look.

First, is it true that everyone who has a near-death experience knows or believes he is on the brink of death? Actually, no. There have been numerous cases in which a person simply collapsed on the spot, with no warning and no idea of what was happening. These people were not in the hospital, they were not recovering from a serious illness, they had no particular reason to be thinking about their mortality. They blacked out instantaneously and then found themselves having a near-death experience. If they had no idea that they were in a medical crisis, why would their thoughts immediately move to imagery of the afterlife?

Perhaps it could be argued that people in a state of unconsciousness just naturally hallucinate about leaving their body and having a mystical experience. But why should this be? The spectrum of things about which we can fantasize, daydream, or hallucinate is unlimited. If NDEs were nothing but hallucinations, we would expect many of them to run along totally different lines from the classic NDEs that have generally been reported. We would expect the resuscitated patient to report that he was playing the piano at Carnegie Hall, or waterskiing, or delivering the valedictory address at his high school, or seducing a supermodel, or winning Wimbledon, or doing countless other things that people think about when their thoughts wander.

The range of possible hallucinations is probably no less broad than the range of subject matter for dreams. While certain types of dreams do tend to recur across the general population, there is also tremendous variety in people's dreaming. The same range and variety are not seen in NDEs. For the most part, NDEs fall into a much narrower range of categories, with obvious overlaps.

Moreover, even if we assume that the person's expectation plays some role in the experience (as I think it does), we are hard pressed to explain the many NDEs in which elements foreign to the person's beliefs crop up. Atheists with no expectation of life after death nevertheless have had "classic" NDEs. Some traditionally religious people have had NDEs that were largely or entirely devoid of religious imagery such as pearly gates, choirs of angels, and the figures of saints or Jesus. Often, the NDE is sufficiently different from the person's expectations that, upon recovering, he makes major changes in his belief system and lifestyle.

This is not to say that the NDE always surprises the experiencer. There are, for instance, a few well-publicized cases of traditional Christians who did indeed find themselves at the pearly gates. But this kind of thing seems to be the exception, not the rule. Don Piper, who had one such NDE and wrote a book about it, remarks at the end of his book that while he is sure his NDE was real, he is doubtful of most others, because they include "non-Biblical" ideas and images. And while his closed-mindedness is unfortunate, he is right that most NDEs are not Biblical or traditionally religious, even when the patient's own religious beliefs are highly traditional.

Perhaps most notable is the overall consistency of these reports. Skeptics, naturally, like to focus on differences among various NDEs. And there certainly are differences. Some people go through a tunnel, and others do not. Some people have an out-of-body experience in the hospital room or ambulance, and others remember no such thing. Some people encounter religious or spiritual figures, while others encounter deceased relatives. Some people have a life review, and others apparently don't. Etc.

But focusing on these differences tends to make us lose sight of the bigger picture. The NDE phenomenon, when viewed from a distance, is actually remarkable for the consistent pattern that emerges. Despite all the variations, the basic trajectory of the NDE is pretty well established and cuts across individual cases and even cultural lines. The person has the sense of leaving his body, approaching a bright and welcoming light, having a profoundly meaningful encounter with spiritual figures or loved ones (or both), and seeing his life from a new perspective (whether as the result of a detailed life review or simply as a result of the experience as a whole). When he finds himself back in his body, he typically feels somewhat deflated, even depressed, at the prospect of continuing his physical existence after having had a glimpse of "heaven." At the same time, he has a renewed sense of purpose, which often leads him to make profound changes in his life, including changes in career, religious affiliation, even his marital partner.

It is an open question whether some NDErs have different experiences than others, or whether some people just remember different parts of their experiences. Perhaps we experience – or remember – only what we need at that particular point in our development. Or perhaps it has something to do with the depth of the NDE, or with our state of mind at the time, or with the degree of physical recovery required after resuscitation.

But surely the general pattern that emerges is of greater significance than the relatively minor, albeit interesting, individual and cultural variations. The pattern is far more stable and consistent than would be be predicted if NDEs were simply the result of hallucinations in a brain gone haywire.

Some skeptics, acknowledging this issue, speculate that somehow the brain is hardwired to produce this experience under stress. There is no evidence to support this speculation. Nor is it clear how such a capability could have evolved in the first place, since it has no clear survival value and only kicks in when the person is dying (or very near death, or in a severe crisis). How could such a capability even be passed on from one generation to another, and what would be the point of it? Are we supposed to assume that, every once in a great while, a human being had a near-death experience but survived, and then produced offspring whose brains were similarly wired, and that this mutation was sufficiently valuable that it persisted and spread throughout the entire population? In what way would such a mutation have any biological utility? How would it increase any individual's chance of survival and reproduction?

Or perhaps we are supposed to assume that this hardwiring is a mere fluke, a random development that somehow took hold across our species even though it offers no particular evolutionary advantage. There are evolutionary developments that seem to be essentially pointless and random, yet persist for no clear reason. But it strains credulity to think that an experience as rich, elaborate, and meaningful as an NDE is a purely random byproduct of evolutionary change. If the experience were indeed random and arbitrary, then its content could be almost anything; yet, as we see, the content tends to be reasonably consistent and to follow the same general pattern or structure. What is more, the content and pattern are consistent with our highest spiritual yearnings and aspirations. If it is a fluke, it is an astoundingly beneficent one.

And there is one more thing. Not only are the general features of NDEs reasonably consistent across the population, but there are striking consistencies in matters of detail. For instance, it is often stated that communication in the next world is carried out by means of thought rather than spoken words. Cities with buildings that appear to be built of glass or some other transparent or translucent material are frequently described. Gardens with flowers in incredibly bright colors, including colors that cannot be described or reproduced on earth, are a common element. Deceased relatives are often seen in their prime, decades younger than they were when they died, and sometimes younger than the NDEr even remembers them. The life review is often described as an interactive experience in which the person feels all the pain or joy he caused others, even down to specific incidents, such as a playground bully experiencing what it feels like to be punched in the nose. People who report out-of-body experiences very often say that their perception was sharper than any earthly perception, that their visual perception was panoramic and covered a 360° range, that they could read minds, that they could pass through walls at will, that they could almost instantly travel to any place they were thinking of. They also frequently describe their confusion and disorientation upon looking down at their own body, which initially they don't recognize because they are accustomed to seeing themselves as a two-dimensional image in the mirror.

Many other details could be cited. The point is that the consistency of these reports goes beyond general patterns and features. Are we really supposed to believe that the brain is somehow hardwired to make us think we have entered a heavenly environment of iridescent flowers and glass cities in which telepathy is the common mode of communication?

It seems clear to me that the hallucination theory fails, even if we set aside the evidence from veridical NDEs. Of course, when these are taken into account, the hallucination theory comes even more untenable. But that's another story.

George Hansen, author of the classic study The Trickster and the Paranormal, has posted two lectures on YouTube. George writes:

The first lecture, "History of Parapsychology," discusses the rise of psychical research from 1882 to the laboratory research of the 1980s. Some examples of ganzfeld telepathy results are shown.

The second lecture, "The Decline of Parapsychology," focuses on 1989 to the present day. The decline is discussed in the context of history, sociology of religion, and secularization theory. Briefly, two thousand years ago cultural elites displayed strong antagonism to the paranormal, and they continue to do so today. The implications for the scientific acceptance of the field are considered. Although parapsychology is doing poorly, I discussed some promising areas for growth.

Musing on my notion of M-space and N-space, I found myself wondering which philosophical tradition it would fit most closely. The obvious choice might be Plato, with his famous image of reality as shadows on the wall of a cave. But I think the best match is probably the metaphysics of Immanuel Kant.

Now, I am certainly no expert on Kant. And I know that his philosophy is notoriously complex and difficult to decipher. It's always possible that I am misunderstanding his position. Nevertheless, based on descriptions and excerpts that I found in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, I think the Kantian metaphysics, in its "two-worlds" interpretation, aligns pretty closely with the N-space/M-space idea.

Perhaps the central and most controversial thesis of the Critique of Pure Reason is that human beings experience only appearances, not things in themselves; and that space and time are only subjective forms of human intuition that would not subsist in themselves if one were to abstract from all subjective conditions of human intuition. Kant calls this thesis transcendental idealism….

The sensible world, or the world of appearances, is constructed by the human mind from a combination of sensory matter that we receive passively and a priori forms that are supplied by our cognitive faculties….

If “we can cognize of things a priori only what we ourselves have put into them,” then we cannot have a priori knowledge about things whose existence and nature are entirely independent of the human mind, which Kant calls things in themselves. In his words: “[F]rom this deduction of our faculty of cognizing a priori [...] there emerges a very strange result [...], namely that with this faculty we can never get beyond the boundaries of possible experience, [...and] that such cognition reaches appearances only, leaving the thing in itself as something actual for itself but uncognized by us.”

It is simple enough to rewrite the above in terms of the ideas we've been discussing on this blog:

Human beings experience only M-space (mental space), not N-space (the information matrix); space and time are only subjective forms of human perception operating in M-space and would not subsist in themselves if one were to abstract from all subjective conditions of human experience, i.e., if one were to get outside M-space and access N-space directly.

M-space, or the world of appearances, is constructed by the human mind out of pure information rendered or modeled into "objects" by means of consciousness.

We cannot have direct knowledge of N-space, or "things in themselves." N-space is something actual but uncognized by us.

Kant wrote of "the objects, or what is the same thing, the experience in which alone they can be cognized (as given objects)." This profound statement encapsulates the often overlooked fact that all experience is subjective experience, and that what we call "physical things" are ultimately sensory images in our field of awareness - images in M-space.

Kant also wrote:

We have therefore wanted to say that all our intuition is nothing but the representation of appearance; that the things that we intuit are not in themselves what we intuit them to be, nor are their relations so constituted in themselves as they appear to us; and that if we remove our own subject or even only the subjective constitution of the senses in general, then all constitution, all relations of objects in space and time, indeed space and time themselves would disappear, and as appearances they cannot exist in themselves, but only in us. What may be the case with objects in themselves and abstracted from all this receptivity of our sensibility remains entirely unknown to us. We are acquainted with nothing except our way of perceiving them, which is peculiar to us, and which therefore does not necessarily pertain to every being, though to be sure it pertains to every human being.

Which could be translated as:

All our perceptual awareness is nothing but the rendering of objects in M-space. The things we perceive are not in themselves – i.e., in N-space – what we perceive them to be, nor are their relations so constituted in N-space as they appear to us in M-space. If we could remove our awareness, i.e., get outside of M-space altogether, then all relations of objects in space and time, indeed space and time themselves, would disappear, as would all appearances – all sensory images – since such appearances cannot exist in themselves, but only in our field of awareness. What these objects ultimately consist of when abstracted from consciousness is entirely unknown to us. We are acquainted with nothing except our way of perceiving them in our own M-space, which is peculiar to our mode of consciousness, and which therefore does not necessarily pertain to every being, though it surely pertains to every human being.

Below is the encyclopedia's summary of Kant's view (in the two-worlds interpretation), with my comments in brackets and bold font:

Things in themselves [the informational properties of N-space], on this interpretation, are absolutely real in the sense that they would exist and have whatever properties they have even if no human beings were around to perceive them. Appearances, on the other hand, are not absolutely real in that sense, because their existence and properties depend on human perceivers [whose consciousness renders them as objects in M-space]. Moreover, whenever appearances do exist, in some sense they exist in the mind of human perceivers [i.e., in M-space]. So appearances are mental entities or mental representations. This, coupled with the claim that we experience only appearances, makes transcendental idealism a form of phenomenalism on this interpretation, because it reduces the objects of experience to mental representations. All of our experiences – all of our perceptions of objects and events in space, even those objects and events themselves, and all non-spatial but still temporal thoughts and feelings – fall into the class of appearances that exist in the mind of human perceivers. These appearances cut us off entirely from the reality of things in themselves, which are non-spatial and non-temporal [all experience takes place in M-space, or more precisely, experience simply is M-space, so we cannot experience anything outside it]. Yet Kant's theory, on this interpretation, nevertheless requires that things in themselves [N-space information and information processing] exist, because they must transmit to us the sensory data from which we construct appearances. In principle we cannot know how things in themselves affect our senses [we cannot get outside M-space to examine N-space], because our experience and knowledge is limited to the world of appearances constructed by and in the mind [our experience and knowledge are limited to M-space]. Things in themselves are therefore a sort of theoretical posit [N-space cannot be proved, only posited], whose existence and role are required by the theory but are not directly verifiable.

The article also makes this important point:

Kant denies that appearances are unreal: they are just as real as things in themselves but are in a different metaphysical class.

Similarly, it is not that M-space is unreal; it is real for us. But it is not ultimately real; it is not the ground of being. M-space and N-space are qualitatively different; they are in "different metaphysical classes."

The Stanford Encyclopedia article also brings up an objection to Kantian metaphysics:

But if there is no space, time, change, or causation in the realm of things in themselves, then how can things in themselves affect us? … It seems, rather, to be incoherent that things in themselves could affect us at all if they are not in space or time.

Conceivably the M-space/N-space idea could supply an answer, or at least a lead to an answer, to this objection.

First (and apparently contrary to Kant), there would have to be change in N-space, because the information is continually processed. This does not necessarily mean there is "time" as we understand it. By definition, N-space is outside the parameters of what we understand as space, time, and causation, because it is outside of M-space, which is the only environment we know.

Second, things that are outside of space and time as we understand them could still affect us - if they provide the data that our consciousness renders or models into space-time objects and events. By analogy, a computer program is a very different thing from the experience of playing a video game. The program is nothing but ones and zeros, while the virtual-reality environment of the game is full of color and texture and movement and action. Yet the program gives rise to the virtual environment in which the game is played.

To somebody who knew nothing about computers, it would be highly counterintuitive to think that the colorful world on the screen was produced by number-crunching strings of binary code. But this is in fact the case. Similarly, it is highly counterintuitive to think that our experience of reality is being modeled by our consciousness from moment to moment, out of data that arise from a nonphysical source. Still, it just might be true.

Roger Knights points me to this article about a woman whose vision of a dead boy led her (and searchers) to the body.

Naturally, skeptics will say that she had something to do with the child's death, even though she had no apparent connection to the boy or his family, and someone else has already been charged in the killing.

Here's some more interesting stuff from Seth Speaks, by Jane Roberts. All of these excerpts are from Chapter 10.

Seth on our physical reality:

It is as if your present situation and all its physical phenomena were projected from within yourself outward, giving you a continuous running a motion picture, forcing you to perceive only those images that were being transposed. These seem so real that you find yourself in the position of reacting to them constantly…

They serve to mask other quite valid realities that exist at the same time, however, and actually from these other realities you gain the power and the knowledge to operate the material projections…

The inner senses are equipped to perceive data that is not physical. They are not deceived by the images that you project in three-dimensional reality…

Anything of which you are aware in three-dimensional existence is only a projection of a greater reality into that dimension.

This matches up pretty well with the ideas of N-space and M-space that we've discussed earlier. Of course, the fact that the Seth material – or some of it – can be understood in terms roughly equivalent to the N-space idea doesn't mean that the N-space idea is correct. But it is at least intriguing to note the parallels.

Seth on apparitions:

I have explained to some degree the way images are constructed out of an available field of energy. You perceive only your own constructions. If a "ghost" wants to contact you, therefore, he can do so through telepathy, and you can yourself construct the corresponding image if you desire. Or the individual might send you a thought-form at the same time that he telepathically communicates with you.

In our terms, the apparition's form is rendered in the M-space of the particular individual. Two or more individuals may render the equivalent form, each in his or her own subjective M-space. Another individual, whose consciousness is not telepathically in tune with that of the consciousness behind the apparition, may not render the apparition's form in his M-space at all.

This might account for cases where two or three people see an apparition, while a fourth person in the room with them sees nothing. It might also account for the peculiar fact that an apparition (contrary to most movie ghosts) usually appears just as solid and three-dimensional as any other physical object, and is seen from the appropriate perspective by each observer– that is, one observer may view the apparition head-on, while an observer who is standing off on the side will see the apparition in profile. Light and shadow are also rendered appropriately.

All of this is about what we would expect if the apparition is modeled in M-space like any other "real" thing. But since the rules (in the N-space program) governing the apparition are different from those governing other objects, the apparition can appear and vanish instantaneously, walk through walls, etc.

Seth has some interesting things to say about the experience of souls when they are between incarnations. Much of this dovetails nicely with the purported "between-lives memories" recovered by hypnotherapist Michael Newton and discussed in books like Journey of Souls. Note that Newton's books came out considerably later than the Seth books.

In discussing the planning stage of the soul's next incarnation, Seth says:

Now in this time of choosing all of these matters are considered, and suitable preparations made, but the planning itself is all a part of experience and of development. The in-between existence, therefore, is every bit as important as the period that is chosen. You learn to plan your existences, in other words. You also make friends and acquaintances in these rest periods who you meet again and again – and only, perhaps, during in-between existences…

This agrees very well with Michael Newton's books, in which reunions between souls are enacted by his patients with considerable displays of emotion. His deeply hypnotized subjects often are reduced to tears as they "meet" their between-lives friends (or soul mates), who seem to be part of a closely intertwined group soul. The need to plan the next incarnation is also stressed by patients in Newton's hypnosis sessions.

Seth says that an individual can choose to relive parts of his earthly life with different scenarios, in order to learn from alternative versions of his life. In these experiments the individual creates thought-forms of people to interact with. Seth says:

He is told the nature of those who participate with him. He realizes they are thought-forms, for example, and his own; but again, thought-forms do possess a certain reality and consciousness. They are not cardboard actors for him to simply push around at will. He must, therefore, take them into consideration, and he has a certain responsibility toward them.

They will grow in consciousness and continue their own lines of development on different levels. In one way, we are all thought-forms…

Again, I find this interesting in respect to Michael Newton's work. I recall a passage in one of his books – probably the first one – in which a patient is remembering a past life as a woman. Though I don't have the reference handy, the patient, while hypnotized, says something like, "The incarnation was useful to me, and I believe it was good for her, also." This always puzzled me, since it seemed to imply that the soul was somehow different from the human being who served as the soul's vehicle. It is, however, perhaps more understandable if we view the human being as a thought-form projected by the soul, which nevertheless has a degree of autonomy – an ever-increasing autonomy, inasmuch as the thought-form grows and develops on its own, eventually establishing independence. Whether or not there is any truth in this, I can't say; but it's an intriguing notion, perhaps worth exploring further.

A common objection to reincarnation is that many mediumistic reports make no mention of it. Seth addresses this problem:

The in-between period itself, however, has many dimensions of activity and divisions of experience. As you can see, to put it as simply as possible, everyone does not "know" everyone else.

Instead of countries or physical divisions, you have psychological states. To an individual in one, another might seem quite foreign. In many communications with those in these transitional states, messages through mediums can appear as highly contradictory. The experience of the "dead" is not the same. The conditions and situations vary. An individual explaining his reality can only explain what he knows. Again, such material often offends the intellect that demands simple, neat answers and descriptions that tally.

Most individuals from these stages who communicate with "living" relatives have not reached the time of choosing as yet, and have not completed their training.

They may still be perceiving reality in terms of their old beliefs. Almost all communications come from this level, particularly when there is a bond of relationship in an immediately previous life.

So it could simply be the case that many mediumistic reports are made by spirits who have not yet progressed to the training stage of their experience. Newton's patients seem to go directly to this experience, bypassing the earlier stages. This may be because Newton's deep hypnosis is accessing the higher self, rather than the incarnational self.

Of course, it's also possible that "between-lives" accounts recovered by hypnosis are simply confabulations. The tendency of the mind to confabulate – to make things up – while hypnotized is well established. Personally, I find the accounts presented in Newton's books pretty compelling, but I admit that my reaction is subjective and that little in the way of objective, testable evidence is provided.

Before signing off on this post, I want to mention a relevant web essay to which I was directed by a Facebook friend. Although the linked essay doesn't entirely align with my own speculations, there's a large degree of overlap. Moreover, the quotations from a different Seth book that appear at the end of the essay are very well chosen.

Esquire magazine is raising questions about the veracity of Eben Alexander's bestselling account of his NDE, Proof of Heaven.

I haven't read the Esquire article yet, but apparently some important details, such as Alexander's medical condition and the degree of his conscious activity while in a coma, are being challenged.

Not having been too impressed with Alexander's book, I wouldn't be overly surprised if it contains exaggerations. I found it unlikely that he could remember his NDE in such elaborate detail. And in many respects his experience, as reported, doesn't match up with other NDEs.

On the other hand, you would think that if he was just making it up, he would have included more veridical details. His account is notably short on those.

Alexander, for his part, dismisses Esquire's article as "cynical" and "cherry-picked."